“Wait, Menma did?” Choji questions before sighing, “Well, if the Hokage says it’s okay… Maybe we can test his DNA tomorrow. You said that his father is Menma but from another world, correct? We can see if it matches him and Sakura. Speaking of, have you guys even told her yet?”

“No, not yet. I think Menma also wants to wait on that for tomorrow.” Hinata replies, “And I guess that would help a lot, just to be sure.”

“Mhm… Ya know… People might think you have an older son if they see him in public with you guys. Just saying. I mean, besides the eyes, the kid looks like he could be Boruto’s twin brother practically.” Choji points out and warns. “But I doubt that they’d think you’re his mother. He looks nothing like you. They might even accuse you or Menma of cheating.”

A sudden awkwardness grew in the air surrounding Hinata as she thought of her father, Hiashi, finding out about Shinachiku or worse, and she wondered if she should tell him too. The boy undoubtedly got Naruto/Menma’s and Sakura’s features, primarily upon close inspection. Anyone who sees him would think he’s the Hokage’s or Sakura’s child. However, Choji also had a point that people might think that Menma and Sakura have a love child between them and think they are being unfaithful. That sort of misunderstanding will drag the Hokage’s name through the dirt if it’s not taken care of quickly.

“Anyways, for now, let’s just keep this among ourselves, alright? It’s for Shinachiku’s safety as well.” Hinata immediately nodded in understanding. “Of course.”

“Alright then, I should get going; I’ve already wasted too much time. I need to get him his speech for tomorrow’s opening ceremony’s speech for the Ninja Academy since that little boy of yours interrupted the one for today,” Choji replies before he starts to walk away into the night. From his peripherals, when he starts to see Hinata head back into the house, however, Choji stops. “Oh yeah, and Hinata?”

“Yes?” Hinata asks, stopping when she has the door opened a crack.

“Call me if you need anything. No matter what it is. Okay?” Choji promised, knowing taking care of now 3 kids alone would be much, even for her, since Menma is sure to be even busier with worrying about Shinachiku on top of his usual Hokage duties.

Hinata smiled back at him, knowing she could always depend on him. “Of course.” She replies before heading inside and locking the door behind her.

Once inside, Hinata notices Himawari tugging gently on Shinachiku's hand. “Follow me! I’ll show you around the house!” Himawari smiled.

Shinachiku followed her and allowed Himawari to give her the house tour, despite how badly he wanted to sleep and rest his tired body from the busy day. Boruto had disappeared upstairs to what Hinata assumed was back to his bedroom to play his games or sit on his computer before the time hit curfew. Himawari took Shina around the house naming all the rooms as Shinachiku listened, paying attention to whether all of the bathrooms were and rooms he was allowed to go into.

At the same time, he also wondered once again how long he’d have to stay in this bizarre world with weird machines that made no sense to him and whether or not his parents were out looking for him already. Shinachiku thought of his mother, pregnant with his new baby brother or sister, and whether Naruto was helping keep her calm or was freaking out even with Naruto trying to help. He thought of his twin sister and wondered how she reacted to his disappearance.

‘How am I ever going to get home…?’ Shinachiku thought as he felt ready to cry but held himself back. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, especially with Himawari still trying to give him a full house tour. Shinachiku took a huge breath and closed his eyes, letting Himawari guide him. The next time Shinachiku opened his eyes again, he saw them both standing in front of a wall with many pictures of Menma and his new family.

Shinachiku slowly scanned the photos, taking in all of Boruto and Himawari's baby pictures. Followed by Menma and Hinatas' wedding picture. He also saw a photo Menma had kept of his baby pictures with his parents, Kushina and Minato.

In his mind's eye, he found himself thinking how even the photos of everyone looked very similar to the ones his parents kept back in his world, only obviously, instead of Boruto and Himawari, the photos back in Shinachiku’s time had baby photos of himself and his twin sister. And wedding photos of Sakura and Naruto's birthday instead, celebrating with Sakura’s parents, Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno. In those pictures, Naruto looked genuinely happy… The photos here made Menma look forced… Despite how much he tries to appear happy, it still looks fake somehow… However, the only photos that had Menma genuinely happy were his baby photos of growing up with his parents.

Shinachiku, then looked at the old Team 7 photo of this world, and he slowly reached for and gently picked up the photograph of little kid Menma, Sakura, and Sasuke standing together with Kakashi on it. Menma looked much like his father, even as a kid in the photo. The only slight difference, however, was that Menma looked cooler in his photo. Like nothing phased him at all.

Another thing that Shinachiku noticed in this version of the Team photo was that there was no hatred or loneliness in either Sasuke’s or Naruto’s eyes… This, considering that Menma’s parents were still alive in this world… made some sense to the young genin.

That was when Shinachiku felt the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes as the feeling of homesickness hit him again.

Shina placed a hand to his mouth as he shut his tear-filled eyes tightly against each other. ‘Don't cry… Don’t cry!! You WILL get home, Shinachiku!! Dad wouldn’t cry in this situation if it were him! He’d be trying as hard as he could to get back home! If he was able to make it back, you can too!! You are Naruto’s son, the 7th Hokage! And the son of the greatest medical ninja, Sakura, trained by the 5th Hokage. You can do this; who knows… Maybe Menma and the others will have found a way to bring you back by tomorrow! Just watch!’ Shinachiku told himself as he mentally calmed himself down. ‘Just have to be patient, that’s all… you’ll be back home in no time.’

He barely noticed as Himawari was patting his back since she was slightly too short of reaching his shoulders or head. Or Boruto had returned downstairs and was now staring at him, holding the old Team 7 photo of his father, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi. Shinachiku looked away after accidentally locking eyes with Boruto as he tried to distract himself with happier thoughts. ‘Look at the bright side… at least I can spend time with Grandpa and Grandma like Dad once did when everyone mistook him for Menma and got to know them… You won’t get another chance like this after all,’ Shinachiku sniffed as he started to calm down. He wondered what else had changed in this world and his chances of exploring this place and learning something new. As well as seeing what else had probably changed since the last time Naruto had visited. Shinachiku glanced to his right seeing Boruto still standing with one arm full of his books, pens, and notebooks.

“What’s all that for?” Shinachiku asked curiously.

“...For me. Since I got suspended from attending the Ninja Academy for two weeks, I must study at home to catch up.” Boruto replies. “Though it’s not until tomorrow, I know Mom would want me to have all my notebooks and stuff ready for after breakfast.”

“Oh, right,” Shinachiku replies sheepishly. “Maybe I can help you too? I can teach and help you learn some ninjutsu or something since I am already a Genin. If you want, you know… get a headstart on some of the teachings you’ll miss out on. It’s the least I can do since your family is letting me stay here until they figure out how to bring me back home.”

“Wait, really? That’s so cool!” Boruto gleamed happily and for a moment. Boruto did look just like Naruto whenever he got super excited.

“Heh… Of course, it’s no problem. You want to be a proper shinobi, right?” Shinachiku asked, and almost immediately, Boruto’s attitude changed slightly.

“Eh, something like that.” Boruto answers, causing Shina to raise an eyebrow in concern. “Let’s just say I have a secret plan, I’m right in the middle of it! But hiding it from Mom is hard….”

“Oh, you are? What secret plan is that?” Shina asks, sounding even more interested.

“Uuuh- I’ll tell you tomorrow if you wanna get in. Because of what you said earlier… now I’m even more determined to see my plan through!” Boruto fist pumps as he says this, a fire in his eyes. Shina just seemed more worried as sweat dropped from his forehead.

‘What I said…?’ Shinachiku thought as he tried to think of anything, in particular, he said to Boruto that could have sparked whatever plan he had cooking. ‘About… my dad? Is that what he’s talking about?’

Boruto then comes over and sets his notebooks and stuff on one of the tables in Naruto’s and Hinata’s bedroom. “Anyways, you should get some rest. After I’m done studying with Mom, and if we have enough time, I can show you around the village, and you can teach me some tricks, cool?”

“Yeah! Goodnight, Boruto,” Shinachiku smiled.

“Night, Shina,” Boruto smiles before Himawari giggles and jumps on Borutos back, and Boruto takes his sister to her bed and tucks her in.

As he does this, Shina goes to the living room to the designated couch he’ll stay on for the night. When he arrives, he sees that the couch is already set up with the pillow, blankets, and everything. Hinata also waves him goodnight, and Shina waves back appreciatively.

The following day, after breakfast and Boruto’s homeschooling, Hinata took Choji’s suggestion of getting a DNA test for Shinachiku to find out if he was telling the truth or not. Initially, she was hesitant, unsure if she wanted to know the result. The former Hyuga had no idea how to deal with the situation.

And so, upon heading to Konoha Hospital, they immediately spoke to the medic ninja about the current situation. Then, they called Sakura over upon hearing about Shinachiku’s parenthood, who arrived shortly after she’d dropped off Sarada at the Academy to hear the news.

After that, Sakura visited Shinachiku multiple times daily, checking his physical and mental state.

“So, why do you claim that you’re my son?” Sakura asked Shinachiku later that day, as they were waiting for the monitor to show the results after she’d gathered some of Shinachikus’ saliva and some of her own and Menma’s, which he’d dropped off that day with a Shadow clone. “I mean besides the eyes… Do you think it might be possible you might be confused and just think you’re my and Menma’s… I mean, Naruto and Sakura’s child because of possible head wounds?”

“NO! Even since yesterday, I’ve been feeling alright. No pain, no nothing, dattenaro.” Shinachiku explains, trying to sound calm and keep himself from crying when he even heard that Sakura was also having doubts about him, “I mean, I know before I arrived here, there was that paper bomb the rogue ninja threw at us exploded directly in front of me, but even since I arrived here, I haven’t been feeling hurt or anything. Honest!”

“He’s right, he hasn’t even been showing signs of feeling any pain. If he were, we would have brought Shinachiku here immediately yesterday.” Hinata also added while Boruto and Himawari were in the room, nodding to confirm everything their mother had said.

“Then… why do you think that I am your mother?” Sakura asks, “Sure, you have a large forehead… as I do, a-and green eyes, like me, but-”

“Because you are my mom!” Shinachiku replies insistently. Sounding just as determined as Menma had in the past. And Sakura instantly saw Menma as a kid within Shinachiku.

Sakura sighed sadly before looking at the monitor again, seeing it was now at least 40% done loading the results.

“I only have one daughter, named Sarada, with Sasuke. Unlike Menma, I don’t have a son.” Sakura then looks back at Shinachiku with a saddened expression, “Me and Menma…. while I wanted to be with him in the past. We’re only good friends and nothing more. We came from the same Squad 7, but we’d never…It’s not plausible that Menma and I would have a child in the first place because we’d never had that kind of relationship, to begin with!”

The more she explained, the more defeated Shinachiku looked. She stopped herself from going further, feeling sympathetic towards him. 

Shinachiku looked down at his lap, contemplating what she had just told him. Both Sakura and Hinata understood how confusing this all must be to him. Sakura also wanted to find a solution to his problem; however, every time they tried and tackled the problem, more questions came up instead. She wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how.

After a few moments of unsettling silence, Shinachiku turned to her. “Hey… Sakura? The Hokage said that you met… You disappeared from this world and had also been to mine, right? That time when Tsunade had dispatched you to be a messenger, I mean, well… I was thinking… If you could return, do you think I could do it the same way?” Shinachiku asked. “Since the scroll Jiraiya sealed, that Naruto and Sakura had used when they came here, is gone, and you could come back a different way then…? Is it possible?”

The unexpected question made Sakura pause for a bit. Is it possible that the world that Madara sent her to was real and not just a Tsukuyomi? She’s been saying it’s impossible all this time, but she’s undoubtedly talking to someone claiming to be hers and Menma’s child. 

Sakura wasn’t able to give him an answer in the end. However, she dropped all her inhibitions when she heard the loud beeping from the DNA testing machine, signaling it was finally done with the results.

She and the Uzumaki family had been looking at the results for 30 minutes already. The results were a perfect match. It showed that she and Menma both matched Shinachiku’s DNA. His parents, or rather… the ‘Menma’ and other Sakura, were Shinachiku’s parents…

Sakura knew it couldn’t be a mistake since she oversaw the test herself. When she first saw the result, it freaked her out, and had it tested again. By the third and even fourth tests, she relented to the fact that the results returned the same. She then printed out the results, gave them to Hinata to read, and sent the Uzumakis home.

Unsure if Hinata needed to tell Menma or not, she released a tired sigh. She silently rolled up the sheet of paper, holding it tight in her shaking hands. Hundreds of thoughts ran through her head, but instead of answers, she only found even more questions.

How would Menma react knowing the boy and Sakura, as Shinachiku claimed, matched him? What if Hiashi, Hanabi, and Neji knew about Shinachiku? Hinata would never be able to live it down. She could see it now; her sister and cousin Neji would tease her forever about it!